BOOKSHELF

Natural History, Sept, 2001

Wild Nights: Nature Returns to the City, by Anne Matthews (North Point Press, 2001; $22)

Coyotes, peregrine falcons, wild turkeys, and other wildlife are now sighted in and around New York City--an amazing resurgence in "a profoundly unnatural landscape; a competitive maze; a wonder of money and art."

Holding Back the Sea: The Struggle for America's Natural Legacy on the Gulf Coast, by Christopher Hallowell (HarperCollins, 2001; $26)

In the Mississippi River delta--an area with more than 3 million acres of marsh and swamp--massive erosion, rising sea levels, introduced species, and other agents are destroying about twenty-five square miles of wetland a year and threatening the fish harvest, gas and oil reserves, the local residents, and even New Orleans itself.

Blue Nile: Ethiopia's River of Magic and Mystery, by Virginia Morell (National Geographic/Adventure Books, 2001; $26)

In her account of rafting 560 miles down the Abay Wenz ("great river")--from Lake Tana in Ethiopia to the Sudanese border--Morell interweaves the day-to-day drama of an expedition with a history of the river and portraits of its peoples.

Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic, by Kevin Krajick (Holt, 2001; $24.95)

In 1991, in Canada's remote Northwest Territories, a small-time prospector discovered eighty-one tiny diamonds in a crater lake, precipitating "one of the greatest mining rushes in history."

The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead, by Heather Pringle (Hyperion, 2001; $23.95)

The Third World Congress on Mummy Studies, held in Chile in 1998, gave journalist Pringle the opportunity to observe this quirky discipline and to explore the "intimate relationship between the living and the everlasting dead."

Making Babies: The Science of Pregnancy, by David Bainbridge (Harvard University Press, 2001; $26)

Reproductive biologist Bainbridge investigates the coexistence of mother and fetus during the forty weeks of gestation and concludes that human pregnancy is "a triumph of the natural world, but it can have strange unforeseen effects," from the mother's susceptibility to disease to the outcome of a male child's sexual orientation.

The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship, by Joanna Burger (Villard Books, 2001; $23.95)

A red-lored Amazon rules the roost at an ornithologist's New Jersey home. In recounting her stormy but loving relationship with Tiko (the bird is forty-six years old by the end of the book and could live to sixty or seventy), Burger provides information about the behavior of birds of every feather.

Walking on Eggs: The Astonishing Discovery of Thousands of Dinosaur Eggs in the Badlands of Patagonia, by Luis M. Chiappe and Lowell Dingus (Scribner, 2001; $25)

Four years ago, a paleontological team led by Chiappe and Dingus discovered a dinosaur nesting ground in Argentina, covering more than a square mile and littered with vast numbers of egg fragments and intact five-inch eggs. The authors piece together the events that prevented these eggs from hatching 70 million years ago.

The Southwest Inside Out: An Illustrated Guide to the Land and Its History, by Thomas Wiewandt and Maureen Wilks (Wild Horizons, 2001; $24.95)

Abundant photographs, historical tidbits, fascinating facts, and amusing anecdotes complement clear explanations of the natural features of North America's desert and canyon country: its dunes, rocks, cliffs, and water.

The books mentioned are usually available in the Museum Shop, (212) 769-5150, or via the Museum's Web site, www.amnh.org.